Moving On
by YumeKioko
Summary: A one-shot about loss, moving on, and couches. Please review!


A little girl of no more than seven found that tonight was not her lucky night, for rest would no whisk her away into the depths of her dreams. So abandoning the idea of sleep the little girl grabbed her favorite blankie and teddy bear (known as Mr. Fluffy), to keep away the monsters away the monsters of course. She then slipped out of bed and with steps as light as a feather snuck downstairs. She hadn't gone down more than a few steps when she heard his snoring and it took all her will power not to break down into giggles. She crept down the last of the steps and that is when she saw her father splayed out on the couch. This always happened around the exact same time every year, why she didn't know, and when she asked her father he would always say, "Because daddy forgot something very special." And when she would ask what he had forgotten he would always say, "I forgot the most important day of my life." And when she pressed him for more answers he would always muss up her blonde hair and say, "Maybe I'll tell you the story one day but not today." So it was that time of year again when daddy forgot that special day and momma got mad and kicked him to the couch for a week.

She snuck up next to her sleeping father who had a little dribble of drool dripping down the left corner of his mouth and shook his shoulder and whispered, "Daddy…daddy…" He stirred and gave a huge yawn that made him look very cat like, especially with his whisker marks, and slowly he sat up. He stretched his arms out and rubbed the bleariness out of his eyes and looked down at his tiny daughter and with a sleep deprived voice asked, "What are you still doing up Yume." The daughter giggled at her father and jumped up onto the couch next to him where he proceeded to pick her up and place her on his lap. "I just couldn't go to sleep." Her dad was wide awake now and looked at his daughter with those amazingly bright blue eyes of his that always made him look very young but old at the same time, and when he looked at her like that she would start tracing his whisker marks, like the ones she had, and lay her head on his chest to listen to his heart beat. She liked the sound of his heartbeat; it was like a small drum beating out the sound of life.

"Hmm is that so…well than that means that someone needs to hear a good bed time story. You like that idea?" Yume nodded her head and with a innocent voice asked, "Tell me about that special day you always forget daddy." There was silence for long time and for awhile she thought he was going to say no but instead he said, "Alright… I can do that." Yume's heart sped up for she had been waiting for this moment for a long time.

"Well a long time ago, before you were born, something very bad happened." Yume looked up at her father whose brow was furrowed.

"I thought you were going to tell me your special day daddy."

"I am it but there was stuff that happened before than that you have to know. See what happened was this man by the name Naruto went out on a very simple mission but something went wrong." There was another pause and Yume was starting to regret the story she had picked.

"See Naruto and his friends were ambushed and while fighting off the ambushers he didn't see this ninja who was sneaking up behind him planning on killing him…but the girl he loved, the girl he was going to marry soon, did and stopped the ninja but at the price of her dying." Yume gasped and her hand fell from away from her father's face to cover her mouth in horror but when she did she realized that it was wet. "Now Naruto had a…a beast locked up inside of him but when the women died he unleashed it. He killed all the bad ninjas that had ambushed him and killed his beloved." Yume sat there shocked at the story so far. She thought to herself, "_This isn't how the story is supposed to go! It's supposed to be happy…it's supposed to be about daddy being happy." _Yume than realized that Naruto was her dad but that meant…that meant daddy had lost someone very important to him. She than started to cry for the women who would never walk down the aisle and she cried for daddy who would never see the girl of his dreams in that white wedding dress, never see her walk down the aisle, and never have that single kiss that bonds them for life, and then she cried for herself for she was in a way… _grateful_ that that mystery one had died for there would be no her..._there would be no Yume_. If that women hadn't died daddy wouldn't have ended up with mommy instead and she would have never existed. It's a sad and strange thought to think that your birth was all thanks to the death of a stranger. Her father hugged her to him and rubbed her back while making soft shhing noises. When she finally calmed down she rubbed at her eyes and said, "What happened to Naruto?"

"You sure you want me to continue?" Her father looked at her with those eyes of his that were now filled with a great, unfathomable pain that hurt just to look at it but it wasn't right for her father to feel such pain, it wasn't fair. If she could share his pain she would, so she nodded her head and waited. Her father took a deep breath before continuing "Naruto almost lost complete control over the beast but he was strong enough to stop it before it got out of hand. Naruto than wept like he never had before. He wept until his friends found him there hugging her dead body, he wept until they buried her, and when he could weep no more he curled into himself to keep from falling apart." Yume thought of her dad hurting the way he had, hurting the way he still might be hurting. She refused to cry again though for that would only cause her daddy pain and she didn't want that.

"No one could make Naruto feel better…except for one girl, Hinata. Hinata loved Naruto even when he had dated someone else, and fallen in love with that someone, and had proposed to someone else, the whole time she loved him. Seeing him like that hurt her as much as it did him. So she set out on a mission to cure him of his sorrow. She started off small like giving him food so he wouldn't starve and coming over to his apartment to help him function again but then she started to do bigger things. She would kick him out of bed and show him the sunshine and the flowers and the butterflies. She made him train so he wouldn't become weak and make him see his friends who were glad to see him moving on. She started to show him that not everything in the world was horrible. Naruto didn't know what to think of this girl. She had always been shy and had never really talked to him that much but yet she was being so kind. He fell in love with Hinata and though she could never replace the one he lost she was ten times better."

"The day daddy always forgets is the day daddy proposed to Hinata." Yume stared at the man who was Naruto and her father, stared at the man who she now realized she didn't completely know, stared at the one person in the world who would always be there for her no matter what. Then she smiled and hugged him.

"Daddy you might not have chosen mommy right away but I'm glad you ended up with her." And she could feel as well as hear him laugh and say, "Me to…me to." But Yume than thought of something and pushed away from him and scrunched up her face into something known as her thinking look.

"How do you forget the day you proposed?"

Naruto let out enough a thunderous laugh and when he settled down said, "Yume do you know what your name means?" Yume shook her head wondering how that had anything to do with her question.

"Yume means dream and that is exactly what you and your mommy are to me. You are my dream come true. Why celebrate one day out of the whole year when every other day is just as special? I refuse to remember because today is way more exciting than the day I propose to your mother." Yume thought about this for a while until she said, "Hmm that's a good answer." This only made Naruto let loose enough laugh which proved infectious for Yume soon broke into giggles herself. Once she finished giggling though she yawned a great big yawn which her dad took as his cue to take her back upstairs to her room and tuck her in. When he came back down he saw his beautiful wife sitting on the couch.

The moonlight shone through the windows falling on her pale, petite form. The moonlight that fell on her face made her shine from within and not for the first time since he had come to know her did he swear that she was some kind of goddess; his goddess. Her long, midnight black hair cascaded over her shoulders and down her back and her blank eyes locked with his and he knew, like he had known the day he proposed, that she was the one.

Her lips had a slight quirk to them and with a teasing voice(unlike her old, shy one) she asked, "So every day is a dream come true is it?" Naruto came to sit down by her side and with a mischievous smirk of his own said, "I would sleep on a couch every single night for the rest of my life as long as I got to see you every day." Hinata just shook her head at him. Then she looked back up at his face and with very small hands cupped his face and leaned forward to kiss the man she had loved since she was a child. The kiss ended too soon but that was okay for they had a whole lifetime to share kisses just like that one. She then pushed her forehead to his and said, "Good, because you're not getting off the hook that easy."

"Hahaha I wouldn't have it any other way."


End file.
